My English teacher tried so valiantly to teach me all about sentence structure, dangling participles, split infinitives, and all the proper skills of writing.

The poor women tried, I just am impossible.

Remember your English teacher?

Yes, we called her tube tits .

Oh, I remember my senior year English teacher. Blond hair, pretty face, flat chested, but had the nicest butt and legs.

When she would stretch to write on the top of the chalkboard, all the guys were focused.

How I learned anything with a raging chubby is beyond me.

All through high school and college, I was woefully deprived of attractive teachers. After college, I got even by marrying a very attractive elementary teacher.

Similar sort of, in that every guy in 12th grade English had the hots for her. Late 30's-early 40ish, red hair, think Lynne Russell of CNN. Nothing special about her figure but nothing to criticize either. Rhoda R., the Imperial Queen Goddess of 12th Grade English, and the single most outstanding teacher I ever had. She held us to extremely high standards and taught us to write and think at a college level. She could wither you with a glance or send you to the Heavens with a little smile of approval. When I took freshman Composition 101 at U. of Florida the instructor told me I was wasting my time there since I already wrote at a level better than most of his junior and senior students and that was all Mrs. R's doing.


The other one I remember was our 8th grade English teacher. I don't remember her name but she was about 27-28 years old and had been a Playboy Bunny in college. She always wore somewhat low cut blouses and dresses so I remember her for a different reason...

I didn't receive much English instruction when it comes to grammar at a high level. Once I was in 8th grade - it was all literature. Later, when I studied/learned a foreign language for work, I was way behind the curve. I had to do a crash course on it.

That said I remember my literature teacher just fine. She was weird tho did let us watch Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail as an example of medieval times....

I had an English Comp professor a few years back when I went back to college that was great as well. REALLY liked her class. We were the same age and while she was a raging lib - she NEVER brought it in the classroom. Smoking hot too.

I remember my English teachers. Perhaps some of what they taught me sunk in.

But, I remember my sophomore year Health teacher way more vividly. And I know what she taught me sunk in.

I married her. Okay, not my English teacher, but she was both my son's English teacher. Of course, she was my wife before she was their teacher.

I learned more from my 8th grade English teacher than from all the rest combined. We read Animal Farm, The Pearl, and The Jungle. She was an ex-nun. In college, I met my friend Ed. He was the son of a Chicago journalist and a journalism major. Ed taught me to write.

i flunced outof skool.

My high school English teacher was 300lbs and a raging bich. There was one particular young lady in the class that I paid a lot of attention to........

I learned by far the most from my 4th grade English teacher. A guy by the name of Tom Tancredo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tancredo

Later on he was a Republican congressman and candidate for President.

He ran a tight ship and piled the work on! I don't think he stayed long as a teacher.

Mine liked my writing and since we were from a small town she and I stayed in touch occasionally. She introduced me to my wife. Best thing that ever happened to me. The teacher? Not a bit attracted to her but I do remember having a couple student teachers whose classes were hard for more than one reason lol

Unfortunately, yes.

Dyslexia and sentence structure do not mix well.

I wanted to bang my 7th grade English teacher something terrible. She took me into the boys bathroom one time and spanked me one time, and it gave me a hard-on.

The only women teachers I had were either nuns or rapidly nearing retirement age. So, my mind not being distracted by spurious thoughts, I learned a lot.

No

"Remember your English teacher?"

Oh yeah, I remember my English teacher, one Mr. C. He also taught the girls fencing team. Goodlooking dude. Always dressed in the latest ivy league style. The girls in his classes fawned over him like you wouldn't believe.

He got nailed for porking one of the team members. He ended up in San Quenton for a very very long time. Us guys thought he was a royal arsehole.
Paul B.

My HS English teacher was good, but not remarkable. What I do remember is bringing my .22 rifle and a shotgun to English class for a show-and-tell presentation. This was suburban NY in the 1950s. Nobody batted an eye, any more than carrying my shotgun through our small downtown over the handlebars of my bike, going duck hunting. Or carrying an uncased .22 on the bus to the next town, for shooting on the basement range at the junior HS.

Just think about the reaction if any of that should occur today. SWAT at a minimum.

It's not the guns, folks, it's the culture.

Paul

Our physics teacher used to do a lot of gov work in the 70's. Nuclear missile stuff. He was also an AVID goose hunter and in the 90's when I was in HS - he'd roll in about 3rd period and we'd yell out the window - "show em" and sure enough - he'd have a couple of geese in the back of his SAAB.

Guns at school was a regular thing even then in the mid 90's.

Heck yes, but only ninth grade with the new blond and blue runner up to Miss Michigan the year before! As a sixteen year old hormone charged male, most of us probably should have been in a rubber room instead of an English class. This lady took particular delight in also wearing the previously mentioned low cut attire and then draping herself over our desks giving us peek a boobies. Hardly a dangling participle in the whole class. What a great mammary.

Retirement age for the nuns at my high school was ninety something!

My high school English teacher was a great lady and a great teacher. I had her from grades 9 thru 12 in high school and until I was a senior I don't think she was too impressed with me. But, when we started Shakespeare in the 12th grade, I had no trouble understanding it because I had either read or been read the King James Bible since I was hatched. The smarter kids were just thrown by the lingo because it was unfamiliar to them. It got to the point that she had to tell me to "give the rest of the class a chance" when asked the meaning of some of it......and was quite the ego boost to an otherwise mediocre student, when after giving them a chance I still had to 'splain it to the brainiacs that stomped me in other subjects.

My 9th grade algebra teacher was the one that was a saint. I hated the subject but really wanted to at least pass it. She went over and above anything expected trying to help me but despite her best efforts, I had to repeat the class. My brain just wasn't ready for it at that time.

Mine was a nun, Sister Barbara. She and I crossed swords for most of the time I was in high school. If she said, "Use these 10 spelling words in a sentence," then I'd use them all in the same sentence because I'm lazy like that. I've earned a good living as a writer for the last 15 years, and she's the reason why.

But not all of my teachers were nuns. There was a literature teacher whose name I can't remember, but whose body I'll never forget.


Okie John

All my English teachers were either old, ugly, or both.

Seems that all the English teachers I had in Jr and Senior high school were men. Nothing too remarkable about them.

My English teacher was plumb crazy. Seriously...threw chalkboard erasers at students who gave wrong answers to her questions. They finally committed her. It was a fun hour not knowing what to expect, though!

Your post reminded me that when I was in jr. high it was about the time that the WW II vets had finished teachers college. A few of them were batshit crazy. My English teacher's idea of a class was to have us marching around the gym singing army songs. I shidt you not!

IIRC, he threw stuff too.

Paul

I hated english, couldn't seem to grasp the rules.
My posts show that no doubt. At least I don't know
how dumb I am.

+1, Junior year of HS did have my English teacher, some how, got her belt up over one of her tits.

All my English teachers were in their 50's or 60's when I was in high school. One male taught freshman English and the others were female. None of the ladies would be considered attractive. I learned grammar and literature, but they did not make us write essays, just book reports. I struggled with freshman English in college because of the lack of writing. Never did a term paper in high school either.

It wasn't until college that I learned that the teachers who'd handed me all these A's through school hadn't taught me schidt. They were just cranking a wheel. So here I was re-starting at the bottom, English 101. Professor was this dyed-in-the-wool, proud commie protester of the 60's (pictures on his office walls). He had a mind a touch drug addled it seemed, halting, stuttering, but with a soft, kind voice none the less. And that crazy mo-fo took English grammar deadly serious, and was a remarkable teacher of language. An example of a person that might have little in common with, but who I learned to respect the hell out of and will always be grateful to.

p.s. hope my grammar there wasn't too bad

My English teacher taught me everything I no.

the only one I remember was my Senior year English teacher. He was a prissy little nancy boy who was, even back then, more interested in being a social justice warrior than in teaching English. Ran into him at the 50th year reunion a few years back, and he is even more an waste of oxygen then he was back in the day. Told him again what I thought of him.

I see what you did there.

had several perfectly good english teaches, and one that hated me, and possibly i hated her also.

one early one in the eighth grade had an earlier career in sales in mkting at sears & roebuck.

another that had us construct "edifices" from our thinking and sentence structures.

a third that thought the sun rises and sets in diagramming sentences.

the fourth, well let's just say we agreed to disagree.

but, all in all they earned their pay.

I remember a couple of them, both mousey little women. I took AP english from one so I could test out of a bunch of college english because I had/have very little interest in the subject. The second one (senior english was required) had more patience than I ever deserved. I think I had 30 some hours of class detention racked up and she lowered your grade 1/3 of a letter for every 3 hours. Failing would have meant facing the old man and even as a senior I wasn't dumb enough to risk that. I showed up to class on a Friday with a bedroll and announced that I was going to spend the weekend to serve my detention. She took my bedroll, set it in a corner and told me to stay after class. My friends thought it was hilarious and were betting that I was going to be expelled. After class she waited a good 15-20 minutes before handing me my bedroll, telling me to go home that my detention would be waived and asking me to keep it to myself.

I honored her request and didn't say a word to anyone for years.

politics is alive & well in all levels of the skool system, as much as it is anywhere else in the world.


one english teach, having a particularly good day, jumped up from his desk and threw his english lit book directly at me, clear across the room. thankfully i was quick enough to jump out of the way and avoid being struck. life went on, like nothing had ever happened.

Yep !! ^^^

kwg

I remember one in particular. I needed an elective in college and opted for "Mass Media" whatever that was (in that context, how to write in-house business publications). What we wrote had to conform to strict journalistic standards - who, ,when, where, etc. To the point with no extraneous crap and absolutely no "spin." She went to war with every adjective or adverb you tried to sneak in. Lord help you if you submitted a run-on sentence and you would get thoroughly skewered for or any logical inconsistency. Perhaps that's why most of what passes for Journalism these days absolutely (unnecessary and redundant) nauseates me.

I went to school in small town USA. I had the same English teacher in grades 9-12, she was kin to me, went to the same church as we did, and taught my Mom and Dad.

Early teachers were nuns or lay teachers in parochial school. They must have done a more than adequate job though, as when I graduated to public HS I was ahead of the game they were playing there.

9th or 10th Grade English teacher was a Mrs. White. I read a lot of books she didn't assign, many times while in her class. I am a compulsive reader though and had learned to skim stuff I didn't really want to read and was able to pass quizzes about her assigned reading with relative ease. We had a vocabulary quiz every Friday and I passed all of those quite handily too, as many of the words had been taught to me in the Kath O Lick skool years previously.

The best thing about Mrs. White's class was getting kicked out of it for eating crow baits (Corn Nuts). At that time, I was getting up at 0500 or earlier to do a paper route, eat breakfast, have coffee, and get to school around 0700. Her class was after the morning break I believe. We didn't have lunch, our school had split shifts, upper classes 0700-1330 or so, freshman 1000-1630 or so. Because I have to eat every few hours I was hungry around the time of her class, I usually didn't have time to get enough food in during the 15 minute break. What growing ravenous 16 year old healthy male specimen does? One day, eating Corn Nuts while reading an assigned chapter or something, she heard the crunching from the front of the class, stomped down the aisle between desks, grabbed my bag of crow baits from the desktop and grumped at me about eating in her class. Back to the front and her desk she goes. A few minutes pass and out from the other shirt pocket comes my second bag of Corn Nuts ! I was shortly asked (loudly I might add, as she was PISSED) to take a trip to the principals office. Yippee,a break of sorts from the boredom; but realize this, it was probably sophomore year and by then I was known to the vice principal in charge of discipline, perhaps not on a first name basis............yet. I think I ended up getting sent to "study hall" for that period, and perhaps even another period after school, nothing major after explaining the situation to him. Back to English class the next day to figure out a "solution". ( I had problems with the study hall monitor also, go figure)

The story gets better now. We were assigned a number of written papers in Mrs. White's class (college preparatory English) along with a "final" oral presentation. Everyone had to come up with something along the lines of a "demonstration" of sorts. Well, my HS buddy Harvey and I came up with a plan. Harvey was not particularly enamored of Mrs. White either. She was OK, certainly not an eyesore, pleasant enough to look at and usually pleasant as far as teachers go, but she could be a bit of a taskmaster and quite strict about conduct in class. Harvey probably had a run-in or two with her so we made the perfect pair to carry out our plan.

Harvey shows up to class with some sammich makin's, bread, mustard, lettuce, bologna and such. His presentation for the morning? "How to assemble the perfect bologna sandwich".

Harvey's last initial is "R". Mine is "S". I can't remember if I followed directly after his, I believe so. My presentation/demonstration for the day?

"How to Eat the Perfect Bologna Sandwich"

So lady, hows abouts ya' sends me to the principal's office for eatin' in your classroom now?

I believe I got a little chuckle out of her that day............... or maybe it was a snort of derision?

I did pretty good overall in her class, getting high marks on the weekly quizzes and writing at a fairly educated level helped. I was, as always, since kindergarten/first grade, saddled with my attitude towards authority and did not get an "A" as I recall.

Plenty of other stories about HS that are somewhat humorous too. Wabi just has to ask the correct questions.

Geno

My 7th and 8th grade English teacher had taught my Dad. He was the salutatorian of his class, and I was just an average student.....and she reminded me of that nearly every day.

My senior H.S. English teacher was fresh out of college. First year teaching in H.S. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse. And a total femi-nazi before there were femi-nazi's... 20 kids in the class. 14 girls and maybe 6 guys. 4 of the girls tied for Valedictorian. A couple of the guys had to take their shoes off to count to 20. Teacher's favorite "learning opportunity" was to have a spelling bee. Girls versus the boys. Start off with everyone standing. If you missed a word, you sat down. Pizzed her off to no end when I would sit down her four female valedictorians and be the last "man" standing...

Have not seen her since graduation. Have not missed her for one second. However, she did teach me that I needed to cover my six when working around feminists in the work place...

"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" --Bart Simpson


Okie John

Mr. Shank, 7th grade, must have spent a lot of time as a pitcher. More than once, I noticed movement, and saw a friend disappear in a cloud of chalk dust from the eraser, or get hit with the chalk. Never caught him peeking and he never missed.

I kept my mouth shut, he taught me something.

I went to Catholic school, my senior English teacher was a brother (male nun). He predicted that I would flunk college English. I minored in English turns out my college instructors really liked the way I wrote.

My mom's oldest sister started teaching elementary school about 1940. She retired with tenure as an english prof at What is now Texas State. She taught 3rd grade to most of my old hunting compadres in Llano Tx about 1947. She taught English, Spanish, and Texas History at Marble Falls high school from About 1955 to 1967. I would not have liked to have had her as a freshman english prof. She was tough as nails.

One of my old hunting buds and ranchers in Llano said she was the best teacher he ever had!! He really liked her!

She used to look at me and shake her head and say, a brain is a terrible thing to waste! LOL!

I had a couple of very, very good English teachers. Mrs. Roberts was an older, large woman who greatly resembled a bird of prey. Being the meek, good student that I was, I both feared and respected her. She taught me a great deal. She was wise enough to have her potential problems seated front and center. One day, she was writing on the board when one of the front-and-centers, we'll call him Duane, farted. Being of mature years, Mrs. Roberts did not hear all that clearly. Her assessment of the situation was that someone had said something. For whatever reason, she felt that it had been The Claw. She turned on him and demanded to know what it was that he had said. Caught off guard by being accused of having done something on one of the rare occasions when he had not, his response was merely a sort of moronic grin. Angered by what she took as a refusal to provide an answer, she came across his face with a slap that shook the windows. When her repeated question went unanswered (What was he going to do, say, "Duane farted"?), she came back across with a backhand that surpassed the first blow. I don't really remember how this all ended, but we were certainly impressed.

And these days she'd be in jail for battery.

The writing and English teachers through the first 10 grades were good or better. However, Dr. Leah Jordan was waiting with her overarching vocabulary, huge dictionary, absolute command of the language and expectations beyond belief. Her reputation preceded, but not one among that express class was prepared for the erudition and discipline awaiting.

On the first day, that slight, red-haired, 28 year-old dynamo swept into the room at opening bell, stared us down to quick silence, and delivered a captivating lecture on the beauty of the language, our dire need to learn and use it, and exactly how we would do so. That bunch of otherwise successful and rather unflappable students was stunned. English never was the same again.

We wrote in a personal journal every day of that year - Sundays and holidays included - and those little tomes had better include thoughts as well as observations as well as new words and phrases. The journal was placed on her desk every Monday and came back the next day - with her pointed notations. We read and analyzed everything from "The Good Earth" (P.S. Buck) to "The Caine Mutiny" (H. Wouk) and several Shakespeare plays - including some acting. She got Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar" the moment it was published and within a day or two told us it was very disappointing in comparison to his earlier work. We then were assigned to analyze the book and write a paper explaining why she panned it.

From among the students in her four 11th grade classes, Dr. Jordan selected a group of 12 who were invited to be "capstone" students. That senior class emphasized creative writing and much deeper analysis of literature - although the rules of grammar always were in play and reinforced. All ensuing college and university lit and writing experiences were easy in comparison. I have owed her beyond measure.

Leah Jordan had graduated from that same high school, worked through her undergraduate, Master and Ph.D studies and immediately came back to that school with intent to be a master teacher. She succeeded beyond explanation. At all times her appearance and demeanor were impeccable. She wore colorful and tastefully tailored ladies' suits with a classy dress sprinkled in here and there, was as impersonal as a devoted and classy teacher could be, and constantly applied genteel discipline. She never married and, upon experiencing eventual degradation of the local high school population, went forward as an outstanding college teacher. Her teaching was a powerful experience for me - a lifetime memory.

Mrs. Brown. Best teacher i ever had. I was doing terrible in english. If i didn't pass english i wouldn't graduate. Some how she got me through. Passed the final exam and graduated.

CCCC,

You were/are a lucky man to have had the type of teaching Dr. Jordan provided.

Her work shows in your writing.

Geno

In a twist of fate, my dad graduated high school in Chattanooga TN....

I graduated High School, in Springfield VA in 1970...600 miles north of Chattanooga.

One quarter my senior year, I had an English Teacher for a semester, that turned out
to be the same old battleaxe...

My dad dropped me off at school one day, in his uniform no less....and this woman
was in the principal's office... 20 something years after the fact, she recognized him
but said nothing...

I had been in her class like a week, and after that, she asked was my dad from Chattanooga...
I told her yes... She told me that she had "failed his ass" in high school English, as well
as each one of my Uncles, which she ticked their names off in a row...

She told me I wasn't going to pass English this semester either...which I didn't..

So my senior year English grades were for each semester, A...A... F...A...

She was way in her 60s in 1970....so I guess set in her ways..

I asked my dad, what had he and his brothers do to piss her off... he said he had no idea..
She failed all 10 boys in his family, but passed his two sisters with flying colors...

and at least one of their nephews...

Thanks, Valsdad - and yes, very fortunate. Would be sad if I were to mess that up, eh?

Mine was very mean. She didn’t care for males.

I had one in Junior High, who had a speech impediment. He also was the announcer at our football games. That was a hoot! Another was an Italian immigrant, with a hellacious accent. His English was technically perfect, but man, you had a hell of a time understanding him!

Didn't have any hotties for English teachers, so those were the standouts.

Jeff

Had two memorable English teachers in HS.
One was a WW2 vet, got shot by German sniper twice. Great guy and cool teacher.
The other was some 40 ish milf type that sent letters to my mom about how good a student I was.............
Like an idiot I missed out on some "my age" trim and "older" trim being pretty much clueless.
Was actually a decent student.

Mom was strict as heck on spelling/grammar.

Got popped if you botched it.

I switched to engineering and after a couple of yrs on the job, working with engineers from all over the US/world.............my spelling and writing went to chit.
Did end up doing some stuff for my old boss, a supposed superstar, award winner...............he wrote like a moron.
Cleaned up his and a few others papers/reports.

In contrast to you Gentlemen my education was sadly lacking.

I was taught by Nuns.

Almost didn't graduate because of my Senior English teacher tho I already had scholarships to college. She was one of those high school teachers that never really left high school, she liked the popular kids, cheerleaders, football team etc and I weren't one of those.

But the English teacher I really recall was in England when I was 12, not sure what grade that would translate to here. I was attending an all boys Catholic school run by an order of Irish monks. Old school in the sense of British Isles old school. Uniforms, ink pens ( ball point pens not allowed), Latin, Algebra way ahead of when we get it here, History class as befitting a Nation with 2,000 years of recorded history, rugby (and no soccer) all backed up by the stern application of the lash. Said lash in the form of a leather razor strop looking think that all the Masters (teachers) carried.

You got the strap for everything, laid across the palms. Late homework, talking out of turn, everything, laid on right there in class. I dreaded that place, but at least ya learned not to be a sissy. In return the teachers had to be tough too, once we learned to tolerate the strap (hurt like a mofo) that was all they had short of expulsion, and we could make a teacher's life Hell. In some cases it was open war. One time a Brother snapped entirely, flailing away in his robe with the strap at a kid who was needling him, the kid curling up on the floor trying to ward off the blows. Other teachers from adjacent rooms ran in and dragged him off.

Next day he was back in the classroom, business as usual, we didn't hold it against him, we knew that kid had picked the fight, and a wary sort of truce prevailed between that kid and the guy for the rest of the school year. Geeze, how differently this would all go down today. Sadly, as was so common in Catholic institutions back then, it came out in later years at least one of the Christian Brothers on staff was molesting some boys.

In the middle of all of that was Brother Livingstone (AKA "Deadrocks" to us kids). Never gave the strap, hardly raised his voice. I dunno how he got away with it but for a whole year he just read to us, first "The Hobbit" and then "The Lord of the Rings". We would sit and listen, spellbound. Even the hard cases among us never gave him any trouble.

An anachronism even in the 60's, St. Joe's finally closed in the 70's, some time after my family had moved to this Earthly Paradise called the United States. When they closed St Joe's issued a statement apologizing for their "brutality". All us St. Joe's alumni had a good laugh over that one.

It was actually Ralph Wiggum who said that Okie

Yes. My English teachers took a personal interest in me. I had an aptitude for spelling and it progressed through each grade level. Each English teacher taught me well. That's why I give you guys such a hard time for spelling errors. I actually won the Interscholastic Spelling Bee in 6th grade. My grammar is not the greatest but I do my best. It does not hurt anyone to be ever learning. I speak both English & Texan.

Freshman English in college was used to weed out the students who had no business being in college. Some teachers were exceptional at doing the weeding. I had one, a young woman, who stood in front of us the 1st day and said that no one would get an A. She didn't give A's because no one was up to her standards. It didn't matter how exceptional you were, you couldn't get an A. A good friend of mine was in the class with me. We'd gone to school together since elementary and he was one of the brilliant ones. Last I heard of him, he was doing medical research at Johns Hopkins. Anyway, when we graduated from college, that was his 1 and only undergraduate B. The stupid bitch stole his valedictorian award.

I could never forget my english teacher.Growing up in rural Kentucky small school.Get this.....it was my Mom!!!! She taught all 4 of us kids.Loved my Mom but it was rough having her as a teacher freshman,sophmore and junior years.My older brother was valedictorian and the only B he ever received was from my mom.Till she passed they still went back and forth about it.She was a tough but fair teacher who loved her students.after she passed we found a box of newspaper clipping that didn't mean much to us but everytime a former student was in the paper she would save the clippings.She was a teacher for all the right reasons and when she passed it was amazing all her old students who came to her funeral.

I was a tough grader, but that attitude is BS. An A grade was hard to come by (it's supposed to be) but not impossible.

A weed out course for the College of Engineering was calculus based General Physics, courtesy of the College of Sciences. There were more engineering majors in one section of that class than there were physics majors in the entire school. The physics profs had no problem working on that imbalance.

???

While I condemn the fact that she would not give an A, she (or possibly someone else) did at least teach you that a person graduates FROM an educational institution.

I talk to three of mine quite often from high school. In fact just last week spoke to one of them.